Harts Barn to host first Plum Festival for the Forest of Dean

Harts Barn Rural Enterprise Centre is to host the Forest of Dean's first ever Plum Crazy Festival on the weekend of 20th and 21st August.

The Festival will be a free family day out - with lots going on for children and adults, including plum games! There will be plum tastings, cookery demos, photography talks, orchard visits, local producer stalls, treasure hunts, craft shops and stalls, cider tasting as well as a display from the Gloucestershire Orchard Group.

The plum orchards at Harts Barn produce an array of varieties: Bells, Green Gages, Blaisdon Reds and Victorias. Harts Barn Cookery School will be running free cookery demonstrations throughout the weekend, to help people get the most out of this abundant fruit of the Forest.
 
The Plum Crazy festival marks the first in a series of monthly events to be held at Harts Barn Rural Enterprise Centre. Next month, a local producer market will be hosted - with the theme of apples and pears.

Harts Barn Rural Enterprise Centre has gradually developed to form a unique centre with Arts and Crafts, an award winning Tea Room, Cookery School, Farm Shop, Fruit Orchards and Farm, Pets Barn Vet Centre and Business Centre. At its heart is a magnificent Norman hunting lodge, one of the oldest properties in the Forest of Dean, built by William Duke of Normandy (1068). It also has a small lake and picnic area making it an ideal venue for the Forest's first plum festival.
 
 Yvette Farrell, Manager of Harts Barn Cookery School commented, “We are often asked for recipes and tips on what do with plums as so many people in the surrounding areas have trees in their gardens and end up with all the plums going to rot! This is the first time we've held a plum festival and we hope that all ages will come along to have fun and celebrate all things plum! Then we hope to do the same for the apple and the pear!”

Explore Gloucestershire
12 August 2011

• Also see : Harts Barn Cookery School

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